Exploring Alternative Casting and Forging

Taller sin Borde Special Workshop

Expolring Alternative Casting and Forging

Join Guest artist, Ana Jiménez in this weekend workshop designed to encourage students to move beyond traditional jewelry-making molds and explore alternative casting and forging techniques. The focus is on experimentation, personal expression, and developing a more authentic creative language.

Instructor - Ana Jiménez

Date - November 8 & 9, 10 am - 4pm

Experience: All levels are welcome

Material kit of $85, including Sterling silver (1oz) and bronze (2oz)casting grain, mold making materials. Payable when you arrive in class.

About Ana Jiménez

Taller sin Borde is the creative space of Ana María Jiménez, where she works between object, body, and space. Her practice is guided by slowness, presence, and a deep attention to the sensitive, the ancestral, and the experimental.

She studied Architecture and earned a Master’s in Fine Arts from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and trained in jewelry with various mentors in London, Barcelona, and Medellín.Her work has been exhibited and shared through talks and masterclasses in Colombia, the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

In her research line Volver al proceso (Return to the Process), she reconstructs pre-Hispanic goldsmithing techniques through artisanal methods and historical study. In the studio, she works with stone tools, clay molds for lost-wax casting, and alternative melting methods—opening a dialogue with the present through the body, the craft, and the material.

For additional information on studio access or private lessons:

Email [email protected] or call 401-484-8161

Info: The importance of exploring alternative casting methods and breaking away from the conventional mold: We will reflect on how, when creating a piece, it’s not always necessary to begin with the standard ingot mold that produces sheets or wires. There are countless creative possibilities when we let go of established structures. Embracing a new starting point opens the door to richer, more personal, and authentic creative processes.

Info: Once each student has completed their own alternative casting, we move on to the forging stage. In this part of the workshop, we encourage experimentation with a range of tools. You’ll have the chance to hammer your piece with collected stones or with traditional iron hammers. The choice is yours. What matters is to observe how the metal responds—how it transforms with every blow—and to understand that forging is an embodied, meditative process. It requires us to be fully present and deeply aware of each change as it happens.

Host or Publisher The Bench - Jewelry and Metalsmithing Studio